The transcript has been transcribed and edited from English simultaneous interpretation, thus there may be potential semantic inaccuracies within it.

Daily Lesson (Morning) February 8, 2025.

Part 2: Rabash. Fear and Love. October 21, 1972 after Shabbat. Article 304

Reader: We are reading from the writings of the Rabash. Article number 304,“Fear and Love”. The study materials are on our website and you can also ask questions from there. Article number 304, by Rabash, “Fear and Love”. 

304. Fear and Love

Reading: (00:28) Concerning love and fear, it is known that fear precedes love. The reason for this is in order for one to be able to observe Torah and Mitzvot [commandments] out of love, meaning that he will feel the taste of pleasure in Torah and Mitzvot, which will cause him to love the Torah and Mitzvot.

But one who observes Torah and Mitzvot because of fear, at that time he still does not feel the pleasure of Torah and Mitzvot, but observes because of the fear of the Creator. That is, he is afraid that the Creator might punish him if he does not observe Torah and Mitzvot.

It follows that then, all his work is because of fear of the Creator, meaning that the body gives him thoughts of doubts about the fear. Hence, each time, he must grow stronger in faith in the Creator until he is rewarded with permanent faith.

Afterward, he is rewarded with observing Torah and Mitzvot because of love, meaning to feel the flavor of pleasure in Torah and Mitzvot.

Conversely, if the Creator were to let him serve Him with love from the beginning, by feeling pleasure in Torah and Mitzvot, he would not need faith in the Creator, like those whose vitality comes only from corporeal pleasures and they observe all the manners of nature such as eating and drinking. They do not need faith in the Creator and observe all of nature’s commandments because of the feeling of pleasure.

Likewise, if they felt pleasure in Torah and Mitzvot, everyone would be observing the Torah and Mitzvot because of pleasure and not because it is the commandment of the Creator. In other words, they would not need to believe in the Creator and would be able to receive the pleasure of Torah and Mitzvot without union with the Creator. Hence, a concealment was placed on Torah and Mitzvot not to reveal the pleasure of Torah and Mitzvot until after one is awarded through fear with permanent faith in the Creator.

M. Laitman: You just need to simply accept it. Questions? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (04:23) In the preparation, we read the article today twice, and I don't understand why Rabash writes that love is pleasure. The question is, in love, there is a lot of fear. If you love someone, you have great awe and sensitivity, whether I can give the person I love what they need, or not to harm them. Because in the article, it's like it's contradicting. And I think, it combines well together. In order to reach love, you need to have great fear. 

M. Laitman: Does anyone think differently? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (05:20) I think that complete love is just giving. There's no fear, no awe. It's just love that you're filled with. And fear wants to bring something else. There's like some hesitation in there. And with unconditional love, there shouldn't be any hesitating, because you're all... Complete love is only giving. You shouldn't hesitate about it.

M. Laitman: More? Yes? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (06:00) He writes about the fear that it's in order to be in faith of the Creator. And based on that, he can love. So, what's the connection between love and faith in the Creator? 

M. Laitman: The love of the Creator is a result of faith.

Student: Why? How believing upon fear brings him to love? 

M. Laitman: By this, he acquires a vessel. And in that vessel, he feels the Creator in such a way that he can love Him. 

Student: What's special about that vessel? Also, fear is a vessel.

M. Laitman: Fear is a vessel, a very strong one. But love gives you, lets you feel, the one you love. What you love. Whereas fear doesn't allow you to go deeper in, into the loved one.

Student: How to go from a vessel of fear to faith?

M. Laitman: From a vessel of fear to come to faith, you need to come out from the fear, if it is possible, and connect to what you were before. Meaning, each time, it turns out, that you need to come out of the state, dress in faith, and get into the state. 

Student: So, never to agree with stopping on that same place? 

M. Laitman: Yes, because you need to control that equivalence by yourself.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (08:54) According to what is written here, so fear comes from doubts, and faith lets a person rise above the doubts? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: Now, when love is already revealed, how can we keep faith? Because love is above doubts, so how do you keep the faith there? 

M. Laitman: What do you think? 

Student: I really don't know. It sounds like it's something very exalted, that there's already a revelation. How can I depict love, that the Creator already shows the created being all his reward, all the good, and he's already adhered to him, but if the created being will lose faith, so it's not worth anything, he just falls from it. How can he keep faith when the good is revealed to him? 

M. Laitman: He restrains himself, holds himself, so as not to lose the faith. 

Student: Where does he have forces for it, that there's certainty in the good? 

M. Laitman: No answers?

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (10:43) In a different article by the Rabash, he writes that they'll believe in the Creator and Moses, his servant, and even though they already attained in reason, they chose to go in faith. Meaning, that even when they already attained and everything's revealed, there's advice to conceal it from yourself and to go through faith. 

M. Laitman: In other words, he receives the answer in a vessel of faith. That's okay. It is enough for him to be certain of his answer? 

Student: I understand that, yes. 

M. Laitman: Okay.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (11:44) What's the connection between fear and faith? 

M. Laitman: A difference in vessels. 

Student: So, our role is to reach fear or faith? 

M. Laitman: Faith. 

Student: Fear is the first stage? 

M. Laitman: The prior one.

Student: And how do I reach fear if I don't have it? 

M. Laitman: It's revealed to you gradually, the light of fear.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (12:50) Rabash writes in the article that all his work is in fear of the Creator, that the body gives him doubts and fear, that's why he has to strengthen himself in faith in the Creator every time until he is rewarded with faith permanently. Afterward he has to perform Torah and Mitzvot because of love, meaning to feel the flavor and pleasure in Torah and Mitzvot. I guess, that's the answer, that's what I feel. That until we really overcome all the resistance of our body, of self-love, we can’t really reach complete faith in the Creator. That's where we feel this special love, that I'm not in self-love but I want to be outside of myself, to love the Creator, not the gift but the Giver of the gift, the relation already changes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (14:08) I hope not, but is there a chance that the Creator doesn't want to be loved by us? 

M. Laitman: I don't see it anywhere. 

Student: A few minutes ago I found an emotion that, oh, I felt that maybe He doesn't want to be loved by us, so I want to thank Him for that feeling because what a deficiency was born inside! I want Him to need us. I also heard that there is no deficiency in the Creator, there is no need for us, in us. Does the Creator need us, our service? 

M. Laitman: Probably, yes. 

Student: So, He's waiting for us. How to reach Him? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: How? 

M. Laitman: How what? 

Student: How to come to be in front of the Creator, if He has that need for us to serve Him? So, how to run to that state, to Him? We all want it, we all want to fill His need. For Him specifically, but also what He wants from us below. And we want to be together in one desire, to reach at one point to serve Him. There's a lot of fear that He won't let us love Him. 

M. Laitman: There is no such thing. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (17:19) Fear is recognition of evil? 

M. Laitman: It includes recognition of evil.

Student: But it's something man has to build, right? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: And the Creator only gives love, right? Like he wrote here that they don't need faith because nature obligates them to feel the pleasure? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Student: So, what's the first stage in building fear? I feel it's a necessary vessel.

M. Laitman: The first step in building fear is for the created being, that the created being must want the love more than anything. 

Student: And what's the connection to faith?

M. Laitman: And then he turns to the Creator and asks the Creator for the strength that will be able to hold him above, to keep him above his will to receive. And he gets that strength. And then, he can be independent of love or of faith. And then he cries out for help because without the feeling of the two forces from the Creator he feels lost, because he can't continue to work out of this. 

Student: And then what does he need to do in this stage? 

M. Laitman: So, then he turns to the Creator and cries out that he can't continue this way. And then the Creator gives him the feeling of connection, the feeling of love.

Student: And that develops more and more? 

M. Laitman: Yes. 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (20:56) I want to continue the friends question, actually. The yearning he expresses, I really connect to that. But maybe now, towards the Congress, as if we want to run away from the most complex prison in the world, and we really just want to be released from something that is holding us and not letting us burst through. Is there a chance with all the world Kli to... Can you, maybe, show us how you see it happening? 

M. Laitman: Escape?

Student: How? 

M. Laitman: What do you mean? What's the problem? 

Student: How to escape into the heart of the friends to go out of yourself? 

M. Laitman: Into the heart of the friends? I don't know if you can do this directly. But into the heart of the friends, you can fall into it on condition that you let go of yourself. 

Student: What's to fall? 

M. Laitman: To fall.

Student: What is it?

M. Laitman: Like any object that is dropped in the air, it falls because of its nature.

Student: So, when I fall on the friends, so they catch me and hold me, each one? 

M. Laitman: No, no, no. Like something that you place in the air, so to speak. 

Student: Between heaven and earth? 

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (23:26) Is there an action that the Ten can do in order to invite the light of faith? Or is it a personal action? 

M. Laitman: What action? 

Student: Personal? 

M. Laitman: So, you mean the Ten or the person? 

Student: Yes. 

M. Laitman: No. That requires the power of the society. It requires the power of the society, and that's not a problem. 

Student: That comes from incorporating in the Ten? 

M. Laitman: Incorporation, yes. Incorporation.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (24:20) These two states - fear and faith, do they come simultaneously, at once? If a person, for example, there is a gathering of friends, and before that he is in fear, when does the stage of faith come? When should he turn to the Creator? Because I understood that faith is turning to the Creator with a request. 

M. Laitman: No. The plea to the Creator can be from fear or from love. And that's it. 

Student: And what is faith? 

M. Laitman: Faith is like we learned and talked about it. It is a force that works within a person. When he doesn't have a direct connection to the Creator, but he is connected to the Creator, in a state that he doesn't have the forces for love. 

Student: It's just that I can't connect faith to fear, as you explained it now?

M. Laitman: Yes.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:16) What does it mean to love the Creator? 

M. Laitman: What? 

Student: To love the Creator, what does it mean? 

M. Laitman: To love the Creator means to bring Him, as much as possible, more and more means to enjoy me. That's called that I love Him.

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (27:55) We need to be rewarded with observing the Torah and the commandments out of love. In the previous lesson, you said something very shocking, you said, among the friends, there's the whole Torah there. So, what does it mean to observe Torah that is among the friends? 

M. Laitman: You discover the will to receive in each and every one, and you want to reveal it and how He works towards you and towards the others, and by that you reach complete love, whole love.

Student: There's a concept called friends, as a value. So, if I divide it, I split it, I say that there's this friend, there is the other friend, and there is another friend, each one's a little different, has different characteristics, tendencies. How do I connect to the value of friends and develop love toward that? I can say, I love this friend, I love the other friend less. What does it mean to have love towards the friends? 

M. Laitman: You have some electrical machine. It creates power, electricity, and you take a wire out of it, and you connect it to your home, and you connect it to a lamp. That's a private way to use it. How can you use it for the purpose, for general purpose? 

Question (Petah Tikva Center): (31:35) There's a law, that says that everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven.

M. Laitman: Yes.

Student: The fear he's talking about here is not fear of heaven. It's fear of being punished if I don't observe Torah and Mitzvot. That's not fear of heaven. What's the difference between fear of heaven and the fear he's talking about here? 

M. Laitman: Fear of heaven is a fear in a person that is afraid towards the Creator that he won't be able to perform actions that the Creator is demanding of him. 

Student: To bring him contentment through my actions? 

M. Laitman: Oh, let's say so.

Student: So, what's the difference between this and Lishma [for her sake]? Lishma is also to bring contentment to the Creator through all our actions and thoughts. Is that also fear of heaven, or is fear of heaven a means, an instrument to achieve Lishma? 

M. Laitman: It's as if it's a means. As if it's a means. 

Student: Why only “as if”? 

M. Laitman: There's many more questions about this. 

Student: So if we, you said a few days ago, that you look at us and according to our state, you don't see that within two weeks we can reach Lishma, until the Congress. So, what's missing for us - to come to fear of heaven first, no? If that's the only choice. 

M. Laitman: We need to discover fear of heaven in the states of exercises that the Creator brings us. 

Student: What does that mean? 

M. Laitman: Meaning, in what the Creator gives us in such cases. So, we need to discover that we have the fear of heaven in it. 

Student: I feel that the Creator is giving us more pressure, more feeling of distance from each other, some sort of tension. So, how do we use that tension? 

M. Laitman: You have to speak about it between you, then you'll understand. That's it.